> So if we want to preserve the liberties we have today we need to think about how those would be protected in the future, and that means being careful about what precedent we set today.

The doom may be inevitable. who knows? I don't mean to be a defeatist. But I would say if a single private entity (or alliance) did control all digital communication, any actions they took could be invisible to anyone that opposed them, assuming they had sufficiently advanced machine learning capable of preventing subversive communication. You would need alternative options for communication, digital or otherwise to have any hope of overcoming such a hypothetical scenario.

My hope would be that we continue to have utilities such as phone lines, that internet would ultimately end up treated as a utility in the same sense as phone lines (especially if it completely replaces them, which is largely is doing), radio (just as ham radio operators believe in the importance of maintaining their systems), etc.

And my other hope would be that we continue to legislate and enforce against monopolies, not just on capitalistic entities but especially on privately run communication channels.